In the past, distribution of commercial mail has depended on a large and complex process centered around the movement of paper. Paper needed to be delivered to the mail provider as raw material in the printing of documents. Paper also needed to be moved from the point of printing to the United States Postal Service (USPS) and within the USPS to a recipient destination. Even after delivery to the recipient, paper must be managed in order to reach the intended recipient or otherwise undergo an organization's processing requirements before ultimately being forwarded to long-term storage or disposal. These processes were necessary and reasonably efficient in a world where digital communication did not exist; however, the point of the process was never to move paper, but rather to move data. In today's electronic world it is entirely possible to reengineer the process to eliminate paper and remove the steps and costs associated with movement of physical mail.
The advent of email allows data to be quickly moved from one point to another without the need for paper or all of the requisite steps and costs of moving paper. The volume of email transacted daily has grown to quantities that are difficult to imagine. Nevertheless, current implementations of email do not adequately meet many of the requirements of commercial mail from either a provider or recipient standpoint. Email addresses may be transient and it is difficult to determine if any given address is either current or valid. Content within the body of an email is often unstructured and largely inconsistent. Email is relatively unsecure and can be intercepted more readily than physical mail as the later requires both the mail and the interceptor to be in the same place at the same time. Moreover, verification of normal email delivery is uncertain. Another complexity in traditional email management concerns the manner of organizing emails. Organization of email is at the discretion of the recipient, and management and processing of email messages are subject to the diligence of the user. Finally, if not appropriately backed up, email can be lost and irretrievable. As a direct result of these limitations, commercial providers have shied away from email as the primary form for distributing electronic versions of commercial mail.
Yet some commercial providers have begun utilizing “paperless” alternatives. This method eliminates the paper and the components of the legacy process that relate to moving physical paper. Unfortunately, however, the paperless alternatives available so far have been less desirable than paper-based delivery methods because they lack the passive receipt and aggregation components of both physical mail and email. The predominant paperless alternatives available today require a recipient to “follow a link,” sign-on to a provider website, and then open the required document. This approach prevents interception of personal or sensitive information. However, if the recipient fails to retrieve a document, he or she might miss a deadline. This is attendant with potential financial repercussions, legal implications, or both. As well, this process places additional time burdens on the recipient and can become particularly onerous if the recipient has to follow links to review materials relating to multiple commercial relationships.
A broad array of prior art exists around “Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment” systems. These systems are inherently different than other paperless systems in that they are focused on a singular type of document (an invoice) and tailored to process that one type of document. EBPP systems are directed to electronic payment and do not address non-payment related mail or many of the myriad consumer problems associated with document distribution, retention, and management.
Historically, replacements to physical mail distribution systems have been driven by providers who are motivated to lower the substantial costs associated with physical document distribution. Because the focus has been on the provider's cost, the complex requirements necessary to motivate recipients to convert away from physical document distribution have not been met. However, the current invention provides a system and method that, among other things, addresses the needs of recipients' while also lowering the costs associated with physical document distribution. Alternatively or in addition, the current invention provides a system and method that, among other things, addresses the needs of providers (e.g., document distributors) by providing audit trails of proof of delivery. Alternatively or in addition, the current invention provides a system and method that, among other things, enables providers and subscribers to accept communications from one another through a secure portal that, on the one hand, ensures that the content of such communications are shielded from viewing by any intermediary—including the secure portal, and on the other hand ensures that recipients receive only authorized messages and that they can manage and direct such messages in a private manner that is not exposed to the provider. The current invention can provide these solutions and solutions to other problems in the art as will be appreciated from the discussion below.